Shadowing Practice: Disney’s BILLION Dollar Marketing & Branding Strategy - Learn English Speaking with Video
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When I think of Disney, the first thing that comes to mind is fun.
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Excitement.
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Family-friendly entertainment.
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And maybe even a little bit of magic.
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Oh yeah, and people.
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Lots and lots of people.
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But the one thing that never really occurs to me is just how close Disney came to complete and utter failure.
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And how they were able to turn it all around
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and save themselves thanks to a clever and also incredibly unlikely marketing and branding campaign.
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And that's what this episode is all about.
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So, let me tell you a story behind one of the most powerful and profitable marketing campaigns that Disney has ever had, as well as five important lessons that you can take away from it
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and immediately apply to your own business or idea or message.
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I'm also going to explain why I'm wearing this watch, and maybe more interestingly, how you can win this watch.
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Nope, not an exact copy of this watch, but this exact watch that I'm wearing, right now, right here, in this video.
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Alright, let's get started.
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But to help me tell this story, we first need to go back.
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Way back to 1920, where Walt Disney himself first began his animation career with the Kansas City Film Ad Company in Missouri.
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Now, even though this is where Walt got his start, it was a couple years later in 1922 when he joined forces with his friend Ub Iwerks, possibly the world's most interesting name,
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and they created a company called Laugh-O-Gram Films, and started to produce a series of different cartoons around different stories and fairy tales.
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It was a year later though, in 1923, that Disney first produced Alice in Cartoonland.
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This was a combination of both animation and live action
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and was originally intended to be a pilot in a whole series of future Alice cartoons.
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But this is where things start to fall apart.
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Within only a few weeks of its completion, Disney filed for bankruptcy, packed up all his stuff, left Kansas City and along with his brother Roy,
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moved to California to try to make it as a cinematographer.
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Alice in Cartoonland however actually turned out to be a pretty big hit
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and as more
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and more orders for more Alice cartoons from different distributors started
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to roll in well it sort of compelled Disney to reopen his shop in California with his brother Roy.
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Soon after that the rest of his team moved from Kansas City to California
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and they spent the next four years working on these Alice films.
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Then four years later in 1927 Disney made the strategic move towards an all cartoon series
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and created the character Oswald the Lucky Rabbit.
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And within a year Disney had made 26 of the Oswald cartoons.
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But Oswald wasn't so lucky, or in this case Disney wasn't so lucky, because another problem then presented itself.
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A problem however that would eventually lead to Disney's greatest success.
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Here's what happened.
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Walt, who was looking to secure another round of funding in order to produce another year of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoons,
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well he went to his distributor and realized some pretty unfortunate news.
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You see, Walt's distributor had gone behind his back and hired most of his animators out from under him.
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But to make things worse, upon re-reading his contract, Disney realized that he didn't even own the rights to Oswald the Lucky Rabbit.
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And so there was pretty much nothing he could do.
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Nothing that is, except create a newer, better, and more appealing version of Oswald.
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And so in 1928 with the release of the animated film, Steamboat Willie, the world was introduced to Mickey Mouse.
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if not the most iconic and recognizable cartoon characters in all of history.
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Now clearly the creation of an iconic mascot
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and brand ambassador like Mickey Mouse to represent your business is a stroke of genius, but the real business and marketing
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and branding success took place a few years later during one of the darkest times in economic history
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and with an unlikely product that even Walt Disney himself didn't think was gonna sell.
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The year was 1932 and the now 10-year-old Disney company was struggling.
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It was the Great Depression and people were out of work and out of money and well, greatly depressed.
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Yeah, it's a terrible joke, I know.
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It was at this point that Walt Disney hired a fellow by the name of Herman K.
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Kamen to act as his licensing agent.
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K's job was to start hiring out Mickey to hawk different products.
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And this is the first lesson from this story.
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Appreciate is totally cliched, but the reality is, if you want to succeed, you really do need to think outside the box.
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In this case, looking for other ways to capitalize on the Mickey Mouse brand.
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In the book, Mickey Mouse Reader, it describes how when Walt was first presented with the idea to put Mickey Mouse on a watch, well, his response was that it'll never sell.
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Fortunately, he was wrong.
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As the book goes on to say, the watch now outsells its nearest children's competitor watch 10 to 1.
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And this is lesson number two, that you need to think twice before you take advice.
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Most people are simply going to say it'll never work.
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That is until it does.
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In this case Even though Walt himself didn't think the idea
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was going to work He trusted Kay enough to go through with the idea
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and it's a really good thing He did
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because it wasn't just children's watches
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that were selling with Mickey Mouse on them as even a number of very prominent
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and very influential leaders and celebrities in the space started to wear the Mickey Mouse watch.
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People like Grace Kelly Sammy Davis Jr. John Lennon Andy Warhol Johnny Carson
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and even Buzz Aldrin the famous astronaut who followed Neil Armstrong onto the moon on that fateful day July 20th 1969.
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And this leads me to lesson number three, which is that influencer marketing has been around for a very long time, long before the term influencer even existed.
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This is because the boosts in authority and credibility and leveraging other people's platforms has always been a very effective marketing strategy.
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And so what started on May 22nd, 1933 when the patent was first filed for the Mickey Mouse watch, a watch I might add that was originally sold for $2.98
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and whose pin lever movement was made up of surplus from World War I, well, that watch became a cultural icon.
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And this is lesson number four.
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The fact that a little bit of fun goes a really long way, and the worst thing that you can be in business is boring.
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And it turns out that this inexpensive and fun little watch was exactly what the market wanted.
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And it proved this when during a single promotion at Macy's over 11,000 Mickey Mouse watches were sold in a single day.
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And in only a little over two years they had managed to sell 2.5 million Mickey Mouse watches.
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And in 1957 the 25 millionth Mickey Mouse watch was presented to Walt Disney, who somewhat interestingly actually wore a Rolex and not a Mickey Mouse watch.
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Hmm.
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And this is lesson number five in that establishing a powerful brand can sell pretty much anything.
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So at this point there's two things that you might want to do.
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First, if you'd like to enter for your chance to win this exact Mickey Mouse watch, not another one like it, but this exact watch that I'm wearing right here, right now, in this video.
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All you need to do is to like, to comment, to subscribe, and then I'll pick a winner from random using the random number generator, and announce the winner on my email list.
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So if you're not already on the email list, all you need to do to join is visit adamairhart.com slash cheatsheet or click the link in the descriptions below.
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It's fast, it's easy, and it's free.
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Next, for even more marketing strategies and what these actually look like in the real world, the next thing you're going to want to do is check out the video
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that I've got linked up right here on Tesla's marketing strategy.
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So make sure to check it out now, and I'll see you in the next video.
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And they're being led by an outspoken, media-savvy, and polarizing leader, the one and only Elon Musk, who is basically a walking, talking marketing machine.
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So while their business growth may not...
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “Disney’s BILLION Dollar Marketing & Branding Strategy”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: Disney, Mickey, Mouse, Walt, marketing. This video has 94 sentences and 1434 words to shadow. The speech runs for 6:59. The speaker talks fast, about 205 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. Only 81% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.
Key vocabulary in this video
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| cartoon noun | /kɑɹˈtun/ | A humorous drawing, often with a caption, or a strip of such drawings. |
| distributor noun | One who or that which distributes. | |
| influencer noun | /ˈɪnflu.ənsə(ɹ)/ | A person who or a thing which influences. |
| interestingly adverb | In an interesting way. | |
| iconic adjective | /aɪˈkɑnɪk/ | Relating to, or having the characteristics of, an icon. |
| animation noun | /ˌæn.ɪˈmeɪ.ʃən/ | The act of animating, or giving life or spirit. |
| animate adjective | /ˈæn.ə.mət/ | That lives. |
| animator noun | /ˈænɪˌmeɪtə(ɹ)/ | One who creates an animation or cartoon; a cartoonist. |
| capitalize verb | /ˈkæpətəˌlaɪz/ | In writing or editing, to write (something: either an entire word or text, or just the initial letter(s) thereof) in capital letters, in upper case. |
| cinematographer noun | A photographer who oversees the operations of the cameras and lighting when making a film. The cinematographer may also double as the camera operator of the… | |
| clichéd adjective | Repeated so often that it has become stale or commonplace; hackneyed. | |
| compel verb | /kəmˈpɛl/ | To overpower; to subdue. |
| fateful adjective | /ˈfeɪtfəl/ | Momentous, significant, setting or sealing one’s fate. |
| millionth adjective | /ˈmɪljənθ/ | The ordinal form of the number one million. |
| outsell verb | /ɑʊtˈsɛl/ | To sell more than; to surpass in sales. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| check out verb | To record the departure or withdrawal of someone or something (such as guests, employees, books, etc.). |
| fall apart verb | To disintegrate, to break into pieces. |
| go back verb | To return to a place or state after having been there at a previous time. |
| go through with verb | To carry out (something planned or promised); to proceed with or continue with. |
| take away from verb | To subtract a quality from; make something seem not so good or interesting. |
| turn out verb | To end up; to result. |
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | was introduced · was made · were sold |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | has ever had · has been · has always been |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 20 contractions and reduced forms, such as I'm, didn't, wasn't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: animation /ˌæn.ɪˈmeɪ.ʃən/, influential /ɪnflʊˈɛnʃəl/
- Long words — get the stress right: influencer /ˈɪnflu.ənsə(ɹ)/, animation /ˌæn.ɪˈmeɪ.ʃən/, animator /ˈænɪˌmeɪtə(ɹ)/, capitalize /ˈkæpətəˌlaɪz/, inexpensive /ˌɪnɪkˈspɛnsɪv/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like cartoon, distributor, influencer.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.